


This Isn't Everything You Are

by bashert



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 19:27:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4275216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bashert/pseuds/bashert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>A few phone calls placed to the right people and all of a sudden she had a flight scheduled and a job thousands of miles from New York.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Isn't Everything You Are

**Author's Note:**

> A shout out to both Emilys for reading this over and telling me, despite my horrible writer's block, this wasn't too bad.
> 
> The title is from Snow Patrol. And I'm sorry?

It didn't take long.

A few phone calls placed to the right people and all of a sudden she had a flight scheduled and a job thousands of miles from New York.

The end had come quietly. Will, sitting with his head in his hands asking her why she had done it, and MacKenzie trying to explain, unsuccessfully, that the reason wasn't what he had in his head.

“Were you with him when you also with me?” Will asked, and Mac had swallowed hard.

“Yes, but,” she had started.

“Please leave,” he had said, unfolding himself from the chair, and walking away from her without letting her finish. The bedroom door slammed behind him, and she had let herself sit on the couch for exactly seven and a half minutes, her body trembling, before she stood and walked out the apartment door.

She didn't cry until she got back to her own apartment, stripped out of her clothes that smelled of Will and Will's apartment, and turned the shower on as hot as she could make it. So hot that it was borderline painful, the water hitting her skin and turning it red.

She sunk to the shower floor, hugging her knees to her chest and taking in lungfuls of hot, steamy air as she sobbed.

There was a missed call and a voicemail from Will when she got back out, and hope flared up dangerously inside her for a moment until she listened to it, his voice low and rough.

“I'm, uh, I'm just calling because we're both adults and we still have to work together, and I just wanted to let you know that I'll be professional at work,” was what he said, and Mac knew that professional meant cold and her heart splintered a little more. She hadn't even thought about work, about having to show up on Monday and see him and be in his ear, and the thought overwhelmed her and she dropped to her knees in front of the toilet and heaved.

Two phone calls later and she had solved the problem. She would just leave (and wasn't that what Will wanted, anyway?), she would go to Pakistan, because she couldn't stay here any longer. She wasn't strong enough to be that close to the life she should have had if she hadn't been such a fucking idiot, not every day, she just wasn't.

So she accepted the job, booked the flight, left a tearful message on Will's voicemail, and was gone.

* * *

The flight was an early morning flight, but Mac couldn't stand to be at her apartment alone any longer, so she packed quickly (she didn't take much, because she didn't need much), and then called her sister Pen, the only McHale within a twenty mile radius (or a two thousand mile radius, really).

“I need to leave,” Mac had said without much by way of explanation, and her sister, to her credit and Mac's relief, didn't ask any many questions. “Could you pack up the rest of my apartment? Throw out whatever you think, pack up the rest, and ship it to Mom and Dad's?”

“Okay,” Pen agreed immediately. “Just… are you okay, Mackie?”

“No,” Mac said, her voice catching in her throat. “That's why I need to leave.”

“I'll come over right now, we'll sort out a couple of things and I'll drive you to the airport,” Pen offered. “I'll be there in under twenty minutes.” And exactly nineteen and a half minutes later, Pen was knocking at her apartment door--Pen was all business, marking with post-its the things that Mac said she wanted to definitely keep, promising to sort out the rest, and then bundled Mac into the car and drove to JFK.

“You'll call when you can, email all the time, and keep yourself safe?” she asked as Mac was climbing out of the car, and when Mac glanced in she noticed that Pen's knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel and she nearly called the whole thing off.

“Absolutely,” Mac promised, and Pen nodded. Mac grabbed her bag out of the backseat.

“Love you, Mackie,” Pen told her as Mac closed the car door. “And I don't know what happened, and I don't need to, but he's a fucking idiot, and you don't need to go all the way to the other side of the world, not because of him.”

“I'm going because of me,” Mac replied, and after the words were out of her mouth she realized it was true. “I'll let you know when I get there. Tell Mom and Dad not to worry.” Pen opened her mouth to say something else, but taxis beeping behind her to get moving stopped her from saying anything more, and she waved to Mac as she pulled away.

Mac stood for a moment, watching the car drive away, before she heard her name being called and she turned to see a gangly young man standing behind her, a bag slung over his shoulder and his hands shoved in his pockets.

“Ms. McHale?” He said again. “Are you Mac McHale?”

“Yes?” She picked up her bag and extended a hand for him to shake. “You must be my associate producer.” He nodded.

“Jim Harper,” he introduced.

“Nice to meet you, Jim,” Mac gave him a reassuring smile. “Come on, we've got a flight to catch.”

* * *

It felt better to be off of US soil. She felt like she could breathe a little easier the second their flight touched down. The air was hot and dry, and the heat hit them like a wall as soon as they stepped out of the airport.

“Is it always this hot?” Jim asked, tugging off his jacket and stuffing it into his bag.

“I've been told it gets very cold at night,” Mac replied. “But otherwise, yeah, hot and dry.” She grinned at him. “Welcome to Pakistan.”

* * *

She cried the first night.

After they were taken the base and shown where they were going to bunk. After Jim confessed that he was actually fucking terrified to be there (which made Mac like him more). After they settled in and laid down, the rumble of an explosion shaking the ground, and Jim sucked in a breath and Mac was quick to reassure.

“It's not close,” she said in what she hoped was a soothing tone. “It's not close to base.” (She had no idea if it was or not, but it was what he needed to hear.)

After Jim's breathing evened out, she buried her head in her pillow (the pillow that did not smell like Will, the pillow that was scratchy and flat and not a thing like the fluffy, hypoallergenic pillows that Will knew that she liked so he bought on the regular), and she cried.

She was homesick. For New York. For Will. For things that were no longer hers and would never be hers and Jesus, what had she been thinking? Coming here?

“Mac?” Jim stirred, and she stilled.

“I'm sorry,” she said softly. “Did I wake you? I didn't mean to wake you.”

“You okay?” His voice was slurred with sleep, and she didn't know Jim. She had only met him hours before, and they were sharing this small space, so close that she could reach out and brush his arm with her fingertips, and she didn't _know_ him, but he sounded so sincere, his eyebrows sloping in concern, and she was so grateful in that moment for his solid presence beside her.

She was here. Miles and miles from her old life, and from Will. She was here, in a strange and dangerous place, trying to piece together something that might resemble something whole, but she was not here alone.

“No, but maybe I will be.”


End file.
